


try to imagine a careless life

by meliorism



Series: tempora mutantur [4]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Established Relationship, Far Harbor, M/M, Parenthood, Post-Endgame, Recovery, Self-Discovery, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-08
Updated: 2016-10-08
Packaged: 2018-08-20 03:52:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8235131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meliorism/pseuds/meliorism
Summary: danse learns how to be a father, and sole tries to make a future for their child, featuring the making of a wazer wifle and a trip to far harbor. Danse knows Sole never believed in the undoing but in the remaking, the rebuilding and the healing. There’s a difference that guides him to make the Commonwealth better.





	

Sole is curled up on the patio chair he’s moved to the back of the house—home, built on the lighthouse—overlooking the sea. His Pip-Boy displays a wall of text, as is usual these nights. It paints Sole’s face a soft pink.

“I don’t know what to do.” He’s become so intimate with the Institute’s terse writing style by now. He’s desperate.

“He needs to know,” Danse says. He kisses Sole’s forehead. “And you need to go to sleep.”

*

Nick watches as Shaun plays with Dogmeat outside, in the middle of a constellation made up of old books and toys. He stopped by to speak with Sole. Just, checking up on him as he’s prone to do. Danse doesn’t think it necessary of Nick’s part, but he cleans his gun nearby, and Sole watches them all.

“So, when are you going to tell him?”

“I don’t know.”

*

Piper sets her Nuka-Cola on the counter with a loud clink. They’re eating together at Power Noodles after a job for the Minutemen lead them to the area. “Blue,” she starts, “he should know about it.” Her voice is pleading.

“I know.” Sole’s lips are pressed thin. He won’t be touching his noodles again.

His hand tentatively touches Danse’s where it rests over his knee. Danse takes it and squeezes it.

*

Deacon’s got his ankles crossed on the edge of Sole’s workshop table. He’s dragged a chair to speak with Sole while he works a suppressor into his beloved rifle’s design. Danse finds it difficult to work like this, so he stands by and watches him work.

“I don’t know, boss,” Deacon drawls. “He’s gonna realize he’s not growing sometime soon. Maybe the doc can help you out?”

Sole tests his rifle’s weight in his hands. “I don’t know. Maybe. I can ask Amari about it.”

*

Curie likes Shaun’s room. There are toys from Before every which way she may look. All collected here in the room atop Kingsport Lighthouse. Danse thinks Shaun might just be the luckiest child in the entire Commonwealth. It’s the envy of Piper’s sister. From up here they can see the drawings Shaun makes down on the stones with chalk. Planets, stars, something that might actually look scientific weren’t it for Shaun’s unsteady hand.

“I’m so happy that the child is adapting well to the new home.” There’s a paper sheet in her hands. It’s where Sole jolts down Shaun’s height once every week. It’s always the same number. “But this doesn’t look good, _non_? What can we do about it?”

Sole clasps his hands tight. “I don’t know.” A deep breath. “I’m working on it.”

*

Sole is setting the plates on a pile for Codsworth to clean up later, while Danse scrapes the leftovers into a plate for Dogmeat. It’s 2042 on the clock. It’s gotten dark, and Shaun is still toying with his food. Not that neither Danse or Sole can exactly complain—mirelurk meat certainly is an acquired taste, even at Codsworth’s pincer-hands. Danse is contented.

“Shaun, when are you going to finish your dinner?” Sole asks just as Danse is scraping the last plate.

He doesn’t reply. Instead, he looks at Sole with a pout on his face.

“Dad,” he calls, voice small. He’s chewing on his lip. “Do you really need to leave tomorrow?”

Sole stops in his tracks. His face scrunches up and he looks at Danse expectantly. He turns back to Shaun, saying, “It’s just a little while.”

They’re lucky that the day’s errand will be just to trade with nearby settlements for food, because when Sole pulls a chair to sit by his son’s side Danse knows they won’t do it. He can’t deny his son.

“You’re strong,” he says, ruffling Shaun’s hair. “You can stay with Codsworth, tinker, read with him. You like that, right?”

“Yes, but... what if something happens to you—promise you’ll come back?”

“Shaun, son.” Sole’s voice is low, hushing and comforting. He holds Shaun tight against his chest to kiss his temple. “I will,” he promises. He doesn’t let go of his son.

Shaun makes a face at Danse for being smothered. Danse smiles an awkward twitch of his mouth at him.

*

“How would you have liked to know?” Sole’s voice is slurred, heavy like his head on Danse’s chest. It carries a dreamy lull with it, and it’s most likely Sole spent the better part of the night thinking ( _planning_ ). It’s too early in the morning for anything more than this—Sole lying halfway on top of him, their legs twined together. Danse’s hand smooths the slope down Sole’s bottom and over the soft hill of his back. Danse suspects this is as much a soothing gesture for Sole as it is for himself.

“I know not everyone chooses how they get to know,” Sole continues. “I want it to be the best I can make it.”

Danse knows. All of their friends and companions know.

“I’d rather—” _not_ , Danse almost says. He doesn’t. The child needs to know, and Danse stands by his word that he should be the example, not the exception. “I’d rather know everything.” That’s better. “Tell him about the Institute, why he was made, where his memories come from.”

Sole hums. He’s rolling off of Danse and to the side, still looking at him, “Where he starts from? Who he is?” He ventures. His hand finds Danse’s where it rests on his stomach. In return, Danse opens space between his fingers for Sole’s.

“Exactly.”

There’s a moment of silence that falls between them, filled by the rushing of the waves outside. Sole’s hair covers his face. It glows in the pre-dawn light.

After a while, Danse breaks the quiet. “I should follow through with our original plan and trade for supplies,” he says. “You will tell him. He will have questions, and he trusts you to answer him. It’s for the best.”

Sole fixes him with a look. “You think?”

Danse’s thumb smooths over Sole’s hand. He raises it to his lips to kiss it, then to place it again over his chest. “I trust you,” he says wholeheartedly. Sole worries his lip with his teeth.

“Well, that makes one of us.” Sole laughs awkwardly. Uncharacteristic.

That’s the clue for Danse to turn on his side and pull Sole close in to hold him.

*

The young Jake Finch is surprised to see Danse on his own fetching for supplies, but he asks nothing. He will gladly trade mutfruits and Cram, as well as a box of Snack Cakes. “We won’t forget what you did for me—for us,” he says.

He seems to have settled back with his family well enough.

*

When Danse comes back home at the end of the day, Sole and Shaun are still in the child’s room. Sole’s sitting cross-legged on the floor, Shaun curled up against him with his head on Sole’s lap, and among the scattered toys are holotapes. There’s one that Danse easily recognizes and Sole knows by heart, the words his wife left for him carried over two hundred years until now. Now, her son can hear them as well. Sole cards his fingers through his son’s curls, and with a hushed, reverent voice, he carries the weight of his wife’s words: “I love you.” His voice is soft, low—it brings Danse to a bunker underneath the ground; Danse sitting on the cold floor against the wall, Sole’s hand on his knee. Sole’s voice cuts through the image. “I love you so much, son.”

Danse is sure this isn’t the first time Sole’s said it this day.

“Even if I’m a synth?” The way Shaun’s voice breaks is far too organic to be the Institute’s legacy.

“Of course,” Sole reassures him. Shaun’s head nods on his lap. His small hands grasp for Sole’s coat. “Of course, son. You’re my life and my world now that I’ve found you. You hear me?”

“You won’t leave me? Like Father?” Danse notices the shift in tension to Sole’s shoulders at hearing that. Remorse, guilt, his own skeletons stacked in the closet. He wouldn’t notice Sole’s tell if he didn’t know of it already. “You won’t lose me somewhere?”

“I won’t. I couldn’t. I’ll always come back to you.” Sole’s voice is full of adoration. “I promise.”

Danse knows well what Sole could do—actually _did_ —just to get to his son. He saw it firsthand, all of it. But of those things Shaun is better left ignorant. Yet, the tenderness of the whole scene flays Danse in a way little else manages to do. The way the shrapnel of conversation Danse catches from the stairs relates directly to how Shaun is a synth—to how Sole will love him nonetheless—leaves him with a metallic taste in his mouth, a pressure in his teeth, the need to go away, feeling like an unwanted voyeur.

“I don’t care if they made you in a lab, Shaun. From the moment I took you in you’re my son and it’ll be like that.” Sole bends to kiss the top of Shaun’s head. “Always. As long as you’ll want me to be your father.”

“Always,” Shaun repeats.

Danse slips away.

*

Not even a hour later finds Danse sitting on Sole’s usual chair at this time of day. From here, he gets to see Sole leave the tower only to notice Danse back right away. He looks tired, though he won’t let go of this ruler straight posture that tells his military background. He doesn’t look so much like the savior of the Commonwealth right now.

“I’m tired” is the first thing Sole says when he perches himself on the chair’s armrest. Danse’s hand automatically gravitates towards his waist and pulls him closer. Sole’s arm slips around Danse’s shoulders.

“How did it go?” asks Danse.

A sigh. “It went... well,” Sole announces. “I think—he _knew_. Or suspected, at least. You know how he always talks about synths and humans? That. He was more curious than anything else. About the Institute, why he was made, before the war. About Father...” He trails off. He tucks himself closer to Danse’s side. “That was difficult. I think he understands what happened between me and Shaun—Father—he sees that, and he thinks the same might happen with us.”

Danse hums. “He’s a smart kid.”

“You’re right about that.” Sole’s voice is airy. He’s proud. He’s also very afraid. “I won’t let it happen again, though.”

“That isn’t entirely under your control.”

“I know,” says Sole. “I know, I know.” Sole’s body tightens noticeably.

“Nonetheless, it’s done. I’m proud of you.”

They fall into silence. No radio from Sole’s Pip-Boy, just the waves and their breathing. Danse figures that Sole will tell him what he’s thinking. Eventually. Once he’s done squeezing Danse in his arms. Once he’s figured out what he makes of this entire situation. It doesn’t matter, Danse will be waiting, he doesn’t mind the waiting. He can do this—the holding—for now. And if he feels Sole sag just a slight increment against him it’s worth the wait.

*

Danse wakes up at 0557. Chest heaving, skin cold, gasps strangled from his rib cage. He wakes up, and just like that whatever the contents of his dreaming dissipate. Only an impression of an impression stays. Sole, _gone_ —him, shaking. He’s still shaking when he sits up and leaves the bed. When he looks back to the bed, Sole’s there. He stirs when Danse leaves, but otherwise he’s a heavy sleeper. A peaceful sleeper, for the moment. It’s enough to let just that little bit more air into Danse’s rib cage.

Danse heads downstairs for purified water, and when he drinks, he closes his eyes to feel it run with the tight knots in his throat. He briefly considers coming back to bed, but he realizes if he’s not going to sleep so soon, he’d better not. So, instead, he sits in the kitchen with a snack cake and an issue of _Picket Fences_.

Sometime later, Sole sits with him for a while. They go back to bed together.

*

In the morning Danse wakes up drained. A blank. He doesn’t move as Sole makes to leave. He’s exhausted, and Sole knows. He understands.

“Bad day?” Sole asks against Danse’s clavicle, crown of his head tucked under Danse’s chin. His scent is heavy, heady. Danse nods. Sole moves to kiss Danse’s forehead before he leaves their tangle of limbs. “It will be alright,” Sole says. “I’ll check up on you in a little while. You need to rest.” Danse watches him undress to slip into the clothes for the day. Of course. Shaun needs him, there are a countless little things that require Sole’s attention.

“No need,” Danse means to say it, but it comes out a whine. Pathetic. A burden even after so long.

Sole furrows his brows at him. “ _Yes_ , need.” And that is that. “It’s alright, Danse.”

Before he heads downstairs, Sole kisses him. Sole’s mouth is warm, welcoming.

Perhaps today is the day Sole decides Kingsport Lighthouse—this paradise Sole built around him, built for Shaun and a future—isn’t the place for a burden like Danse.

He refuses to imagine beyond that.

*

Danse wakes up. Again. He doesn’t feel drained so much as he feels like a Deathclaw’s stomping grounds. But he decides that’s enough resting for one day, and as such he sits up, trying to place himself, to figure out the time of day. Clock tells him it’s 1427.

Sole—he thinks—left him lunch on the table. His chest shouldn’t flutter and flip at the sight of radstag stew. But it does.

*

The rest of the day crawls by in a haze.

*

Shaun calls Danse a Paladin, before Sole presumably corrects him. (Danse is grateful.) Then, he calls him Mister Danse. It’s a good name. Sometimes Sole teases him with it, but Danse doesn’t mind. Danse doesn’t know how to interact with the child. Shaun flows too fast, too unreasonably with how Danse keeps just thinking. He can’t consider the child without first considering the Institute, everything Father did. He can’t help but consider Sole’s irrational, incomprehensible, devout adoration for the child, either. Sole hugs his child far too often and for too long. He searches far and wide for artifacts from Before for his child, he’s clawed his way through the wasteland for his son.

Sometimes Shaun crawls into bed with them in the early morning. It isn’t so difficult on the nights Dogmeat doesn’t sleep with them. It’s probably unusual for his age; but Danse knows how it is to hunger for touch, an entire childhood alone in the Capital Wasteland. Shaun slips into the interstices of their bodies, and Sole immediately wakes up to murmur some indistinct greeting and let his son under his wing. Danse thinks he knows—he _knows_ love, but not quite like this.

But this—the waking up, Shaun sleepy and heavy against Danse’s shoulder, against Sole’s back—it’s worth it. Shaun laughs meekly when Danse ruffles his hair. He feels a swell of pride.

*

Before stopping by to check up on another settlement, they pass by Sanctuary Hills. The settlement is doing great, it’s flourishing. Everyone rushes to greet them, and Sole spares a moment to talk with everyone there at the time—Cait, Curie, MacCready, Sturges. Preston, it seems, is at the Castle, so Sole uses the radio to update him on what he’s been doing for the cause. He’s been very dedicated.

As always, Sole doesn’t step into the blue house.

They don’t linger very long before they’re on the road again.

*

A vertibird flies overhead. Sole immediately tells him to lay low, to duck, _please fuck I hope they didn’t see us_. They didn’t. Danse is grateful to a deity crafted for beings of flesh and bone, not machines. It doesn’t matter. He can’t bear the thought of shooting down more of his— _former_ , former people.

*

Sole is checking up on a pair of settlers when Danse finishes maintenance on one of the turrets posted all around Sunshine Tidings Co-op. It isn’t strictly necessary, but one of the traders mentioned it getting banged up during the latest raider attack. Luckily, the defenses the Minutemen set up did their job. But still, it pays off to be cautious.

It helps that Danse isn’t entirely adverse to the Minutemen’s ideals—they are honorable, and they remind Danse of his days back in the Citadel, the poison he saw his superiors spit on the idea of sending companies to help the local settlements. He never did get to see this side of that help. It’s worth it, and it takes Danse’s mind off of thinks that make Sole worry. But Sole, he’s talking, more with gestures than he does with words, his voice giving way to cooing that is justified when Danse sees a baby bundled in blankets and their mother’s arms. The woman looks tired, but happy. This wasteland isn’t gentle with young mothers.

Just as Danse walks up to them, Sole’s asking, “Can I hold—”

“Her.”

Sole nods. “Yeah, can I hold her?”

“Of course, General,” replies the woman. She gently eases the baby into Sole’s open arms, both her and Sole’s movements practiced. Of course, of course.

He’s eager. He immediately turns to shoot a look up at Danse, face full of wonder and warmth as he turns back to the baby. The baby just looks with wide eyes and reaches for Sole’s hair as he cradles her, rocking her gently in his arms. Danse can’t help but stare at them both. For the briefest moment, Danse forgets how to breathe.

“She’s so beautiful,” muses Sole.

“She is.” Danse nods. His hand finds Sole’s shoulder. “She really is.”

The mother laughs, her hand on the arm of the man Danse assumes to be the father. “You’re pretty handy with kids, General,” she says.

Sole laughs low. “I... we—we have a child. He’s ten, already.” There’s a wistful something to his voice. Something just—just blooms in Danse’s chest. “I remember when I could hold him just like this. Could place him on my lap and he just wouldn’t let go of my fingers.”

“With all due respect,” the man says, “but you must be older than you look, General.”

“Kind of, yes.” Sole leaves it at that. There’s a story not worth the unearthing. “Do you want to hold her?” The question is for Danse, of course.

“Can I?”

“Sure thing,” says the man.

Sole walks Danse through holding a baby. He has her tucked against Danse’s chest, her tiny little head on the crook of his arm. “That’s it,” Sole murmurs, encouraging. Danse is paralyzed, looking at this small person in his arms. The contrast is almost ridiculous, given his power armor. He’s terrified of hurting her. He almost doesn’t even dare breathe, but he looks to Sole watching him, not quite smiling but soft and tender.

The baby coos at him and pats the power armor. Sole laughs airily. Danse can swear he’s flying.

*

As they make their way towards Goodneighbor, Sole makes it a point to watch Danse intensively. Maybe there’s still a trace of wonder left in his face.

We have a child.

We—we, we, we, _ad infinitum_.

*

They pay for a bed—a worn down mattress, really—at Bunker Hill. Sole plants himself atop Danse and a tender kiss on his mouth, too tired to do anything else. Danse closes his eyes and attempts to sleep.

*

Doctor Amari is at her usual table. Irma greets them with sweet words and a crooning voice, as usual. As usual, Sole tells her he’s here for Amari. He doesn’t like the Memory Den. Neither does Danse. Not with the weight of history that he devoured like a voyeur as Sole navigated Kellogg’s childhood, his mercenary work, what happened in the Vault. It took weeks and the oppressive isolation of the Glowing Sea for Sole to talk about what Danse saw, then.

Granted, Amari is skeptical when Sole brings up the subject of Shaun’s programming. But she thinks she might just be able to do it. Sole places a handful of holotapes on the table. It seems to help.

“Of course, it would help to have more records to go with,” she says. “It’s a pity I can’t talk to the scientists who actually worked with the child.”

Sole knits his brows together before realization dawns upon him. “I think I got something. It might take some time, convincing her, but I think I got someone. She’s a contact in the Brotherhood,” he says.

Li. Of course. She’s not really Brotherhood, and she’s acerbic towards Sole at best.

Amari hums. “That would be excellent. Any information on the project goals would help me.”

“Well, she was in charge of Shaun. If anyone knows what sort of coding was put into my son, it’s her.”

And that is that.

*

On the way back home, Sole seems to be in a rather good mood. He’s ecstatic, he’s singing to the tunes of the radio. It’s an easy walk north.

*

With the pretext of trading with Greentop Nursery (they _do_ trade. They get half a dozen tatos and a pair of gourds, as well as an added carrot; a gift to the Minutemen, a thank you for all the trading routes and protection), they make a detour.

The sentries installed at the bunker greet them like a pair of faithful watchdogs. If they’re intact then that means that there were no unwanted visitors. All the better, thinks Danse. The elevator’s swerve as they go down is, against all odds, familiar, oddly comforting, much like seeing the bunker again. They cobbled together a home here, for all it’s worth.

Sole immediately proceeds to flop down on the worn down couch and unbuckle every piece of armor from his body. Danse leaves his power armor in the corner, right next to the elevator, seeing how the rack is occupied by his previous—Sole’s, now—set of T-60. He turns back to Sole just as he’s putting his socks and laces into his boots and shuffling them under the couch. Sole’s looking at him, which just makes Danse smile meekly and look down to his hands and wipe them on his legs. Pitiful. He doesn’t miss Sole’s low chuckle, and certainly not him clicking his Pip-Boy to turn the radio on. When Danse goes to remove his boots and leave them by Sole’s, the blonde’s lounging on the couch, propped up on his elbows, fixing him with this look that brings this jolt of electricity to Danse’s teeth, this hunger.

“Hey there,” says Sole. He’s rearranging his feet to let Danse sit and unlace his boots. Billie Holiday croons _Crazy He Calls Me_. It almost makes Danse smile, mellow and easy.

What he’s almost loathe to admit is how he’s missed this: the ease with which he turns to Sole and asks him, “Is that an invitation?” Danse’s come to enjoy—accept Shaun, but the child’s presence doesn’t allow for many moments like this.

Sole laughs, clear as crystal. “Come here.”

Danse does. He crawls over Sole, leaving their legs entangled as he settles down. He’s home, and Sole’s greedy hands greet him promptly to unbutton his shirt. Danse heaves himself up to straddle him and facilitate the whole process until his hands go straight for Sole’s pants, seeing as Sole’s just remembered to shrug off his leather jacket. Sole throws it to the back of the couch. He’s in the middle of shimming Sole’s pants and underpants down his thighs when he’s cut off.

“My kiss,” Sole demands, indignant.

Danse laughs. He also laughs into the kiss, which just makes Sole give up on his mouth to kiss a line along his jaw, bite Danse’s chin playfully. Danse’s still working Sole’s pants down his legs, which is much harder than it seems given their current predicament. It’s difficult to part from Sole’s mouth, but he does it just long enough to take care of the last stretch of leg. The couch doesn’t help. Danse voices this exact feeling, standing up and placing Sole’s pants on the coffee table:

“We have a bed, you know.”

Sole _mmhmm_ ’s absentmindedly. He’s sitting up and unbuttoning the front of Danse’s pants. “You might want to take those off now, too.” He kisses Danse’s stomach. Danse cards his fingers through Sole’s hair with a great surge of fondness. “Besides, I’m doing just fine here.”

“You, perhaps,” says Danse. He takes his pants off, leaves them somewhat folded up on the table. He knows Sole’s watching him. His face burns. Danse takes his shirt and underpants off for good measure.

With great urgency, Sole places his hands on Danse’s sides and coaxes him back onto the couch. Danse doesn’t resist. He ends up on his back, legs dangling off the side of the couch, and Sole settles himself across his legs. This is the moment he finally chooses to shuck off his shirt. Danse finds himself wanting to map the freckles on Sole’s shoulders. There will be time for that, later. They’ll always make the time. He drags Sole down so he’s flush against him.

“Is this better?” whispers Sole against Danse’s temple. His hair and the beginning of a beard tickle. He needs a shave.

It is, it is. Danse very much likes having Sole on top of him like this. He huffs, eyes closed. “You’re warm.”

Sole bites Danse’s nose and laughs. He retreats before Danse can do anything, kissing a line downwards. Sole’s hands roam but they never lose their end goal of Danse’s hips, his legs. He loves this, taking his time with dragging kisses wherever he pleases. “And you are getting soft,” Sole sing-songs, knowing fully well it is impossible. Danse grunts in reply. Danse loses sight of him for a moment as he slips off of him and onto the floor. Sole’s spreading messy kisses all around Danse’s stiffening cock. It’s frustrating. Danse groans when he _finally_ licks a wet line along its length. He hears Sole chuckle. He kisses the tip of Danse’s cock before he gets to work.

The most noise they produce afterward comes from Danse’s throat, moans and grunts low but earnest. They barely make themselves heard over the sound of the music, but that’s just how Danse is. Sole’s so good. He’s perfect. Danse finds Sole’s hand on his thigh and squeezes it before bringing it to the crown of Sole’s head. Sole’s relentless, and just like that Danse rides his orgasm out.

Then, Sole clambers his body again and sits himself on Danse’s stomach. He’s a mess. He cleans the smeared drool down to his chin on the back of his hand. He’s still a mess, flushed red on his cheeks and ears and mouth. Danse notices himself biting down his knuckles at the sight, his other hand reaches to touch what he can of Sole—his knee, his thigh, the head of his flushed cock dragging against Danse’s stomach. Sole cries out when Danse squeezes it tenderly.

“Come here, soldier,” Danse orders.

Sole grins wickedly. “Sir, yes, sir,” he says.

He moves all at once, managing to crawl over his body so Danse can mouth his cock. Danse’s hands steady Sole’s hips so he’s right where Danse wants him. Sole curses and squirms as much as Danse’s hold lets him. “You’re delightful,” he moans out. He doesn’t speak anymore, not after Danse’s fingers press slow circles over his perineum, but he’s still noisy. He’s shaking when he comes, huffing and calling out Danse’s name. Danse swallows his seed up dutifully, and hums around Sole’s softening erection in return. It’s worth the shudder that runs through Sole.

*

Sole cleans them both up with a soft rag soaked in water, taking special care with cleaning Danse’s cock. Still ticklish from his afterglow, Danse squirms, and it’s just what Sole wants.

The way he finishes it with a line of soft kisses along Danse’s cock almost makes up for the coldness of the rag.

*

They’re back home before the end of the day. Shaun greets them with all the enthusiasm his little body can contain.

*

In the morning, Sole shaves and heads down to the airport. “I’ll be back before the sun sets,” he promises even before he leaves their collective warmth under the sheets.

Danse huffs. He won’t be the one to keep Sole from doing this. It’s what he’s worked so hard to achieve, this little dream of a family. It isn’t what Sole initially planned, but so far he hasn’t sent neither synth companion nor synth child away. _Yet_ , says the voice Danse can’t quite resist at times. He’s gotten better at it. Danse stops nosing Sole’s freckles on his scapula in favor of kissing them.

He says, “Don’t go where I can’t follow.”

It’s routine, but it doesn’t keep the fear of losing his world entirely at bay. It gnaws at Danse’s trachea even now.

*

Shaun asks Danse to keep him company, saying that he needs a favor, and despite still haven’t figured out where the issue with the right knee joint of his power armor is, he joins the child. Shaun has strung up a new drawing along with the usual ones. It depicts a laser rifle. It is firing. It has a _Wazer Wifle_ written underneath. The _r_ is crooked, but Shaun still treats it like his best work as he unpins it to put it in front of him. It manages to make Danse smile fondly as he sits down in front of Shaun.

“I want to make a gift for Dad,” Shaun announces evenly.

Then his little fingers are tracing the somewhat clumsy lines. It’s an interesting contrast, Danse thinks, between his childishness and solemnity.

“You know how a laser weapon works, right?” Shaun asks. “Right. I know you have one, and Dad does, too, but. I want to make something for him, something special. Can you help me, Mister Danse?”

Danse nods. Once. “Of course. What do you need?”

“See, I wanted to make a laser rifle for Dad, but this one’s special! See.” The kid’s taping his finger on the laser fire. It’s yellow. “It can fire without ammo. You know, like the cranky weapon Dad has?”

“Laser musket,” Danse corrects.

“Yes... that.”

“And it would be for the best if you had one to work with.”

“Okay, alright,” says Shaun. “I’ll ask Dad for one. But how does it work?”

“The laser musket works because you crank it to generate energy. You could adapt the laser rifle to have a generator of its own, perhaps. There are several options you could work into the design.”

“Show me,” Shaun says, eagerly. He’s fetching another plain piece of paper and setting it between them. “I’ll make a new drawing and you tell me the parts, okay?”

Danse nods. Shaun’s copying the original drawing of the Wazer Wifle meticulously. Once he’s done, he points at the barrel with the pencil tip. “This. Does this need to change?”

It does, it does. Danse points it out, and Shaun notes everything down. He assigns each component of the weapon a color, but it ends up having two yellow parts as well as two pinks. It’s difficult to find intact sets of twelve colored pencils in the wasteland, but Shaun makes do. He assigns them distinct patterns of coloring, and Danse feels indescribably proud of the fact.

The evening floats by.

*

Of course he wants to make something for Sole. It is what a child does for a parent. This, Danse thinks, is what is expected—standard—for a child. This is what Father expected out of him, erasing his memories and manufacturing his adoration for Sole. The synth child—Shaun, _Shaun_ —was programmed for this very purpose. Of course, of course.

*

Shaun actually manages to wear himself out discussing plans and ideas with Danse. At Danse, to be more precise. Codsworth finds it delightful how the young Shaun is bonding with Danse. Danse doesn’t. It’s 2309 and he is mildly terrified when the kid starts snoozing against his shoulder, RobCo magazine slack in his small hands. While he isn’t adverse to the child, he isn’t the one whom Shaun seeks when he’s tired, when he needs help.

Still, he takes the magazine off his hands and sets it on the desk. He carries Shaun to his bed and tucks him into bed. Shaun opens tired eyes and fixes him just as Danse makes to leave. “Dad will come, right?” Danse nods eagerly. He will, he will.

“Of course, kid. He probably wanted to rest before coming home.” He hopes. “He had a long road to walk today. Tomorrow you will see him.”

Shaun nods, and closes his eyes. “Thank you, Mister Danse. You’re really nice, you know.”

The kid won’t remember this, but Danse will. He smiles.

He says nothing.

*

Before his day finishes, Danse walks around the lighthouse’s perimeter on watch. He knows sleep won’t visit easily for the night.

*

At 0438 Danse wakes up to Sole burrowing under his arm, toes curling against Danse’s calves. He can feel their chill even through the thin cotton of his pants. It’s alright. He’s here, alive and in Danse’s arms, feeding off of his body heat.

“Hi,” says Sole. He’s still settling in. He’s turned around already and is tucking his back against Danse’s chest.

“Hello,” says Danse. “Took you long enough.”

Sole hums. He seems to have settled in a comfortable position. All the better, because Danse’s wrapping his arms around Sole’s middle and hugging him tight. His nose bumps against the last vertebra of Sole’s neck. Danse kisses it. Kisses hair over it, too. Sole pats him on the arm. “Sorry about that. I decided to pass through Goodneighbor before coming back. Li says she can help, but it took a lot of persuasion. You know. We’ll need to use Amari’s lab. She’ll see what can be done.” Sole yawns. “It’s looking good.” Danse hears another yawn, heavier this time.

“Does the Elder know anything about this?” asks Danse.

“Taken care of.”

Danse grunts. Sole hums back, more there than here.

They fall sleep.

*

Not two hours later, a stripe of early sun licking them warm where they’re tucked under the sheets, Sole cups Danse’s erection. Danse jerks against his hand only to have Sole snorting. His movements are awkward, given how Sole’s still trapped in his arms, and Danse’s cock awkwardly pressed against Sole’s tailbone. He tries again, slipping his hand underneath the fabric of Danse’s pants. It’s warm and delicious. This time, Danse grunts and buries his forehead into the back of Sole’s neck.

“Missed you,” says Sole.

Danse brushes Sole’s hair away from his neck and plants messy, sleepy kisses there. He slacks his grip on Sole to wrap his hand against his cock. Sole moans, all the while his hand returns the gesture in earnest.

“This isn’t a competition, you know,” Danse says.

It makes Sole laugh. “It is if I make you come first. And I _win_.”

Sole turns around and shuts Danse up with a kiss and his hands around both their erections. His knuckles brush against the coarse hair running below Danse’s navel. Danse’s legs find warmth where they’re pressed up against Sole’s. It’s good, it’s great. Danse knows he’s lost. It’s okay. He’ll bring up the new bruise he sees on Sole’s right shoulder when they’re done.

*

Danse fetches a tin of homemade salve from the bathroom to rub it on Sole’s bruise. Rifle recoil, that much is obvious, though uncommon.

He doesn’t need to probe much to learn the story behind it. “Ferals,” says Sole. “Passed by a swarm of them when I left Goodneighbor and before I knew it they were on me. Didn’t have the time to prepare.” Danse huffs. “I’m _alright_ ,” Sole adds. This isn’t the first time Sole gets hurt like this, this bruise isn’t much unlike the hooked scar on Sole’s nose. It was broken the first time he’d picked up a rifle back in the army.

Still. “It is tactically unwise not to carry a backup weapon. Otherwise, don’t go at it alone.”

Truly, Danse thinks Sole’s hunting rifle is a work of art, the best it could be, but it is a nightmare in close quarters combat. Were he there, with Sole, this wouldn’t be necessary. If, _if_.

*

Danse is there when Shaun asks Sole for the laser rifle for his project. The child promises that it is to make him a present. Something useful. That seems to grant his request, but it doesn’t keep Sole from repeatedly checking the rifle’s safety before he hands it to his son. It’s an old weapon he kept around, just in case. It works just as well.

*

It’s a surprise when Ellie Perkins, secretary to Nick Valentine, sets up a broadcast requesting Sole’s presence back at the agency. ASAP. It’s about a case. Sole hugs Shaun and spins him around and kisses Danse before he heads off.

“It won’t be long,” he promises.

*

It isn’t long.

On the third day Sole appears with Valentine following. They don’t stay for too long. Danse has this gut feeling nothing good will come from this.

“You don’t even know how long you will be away?” Danse asks as Sole packs supplies—purified water, canned food, ammo, a change of clothes. He doesn’t even dare to look at Danse and grunt in acknowledgment. The duffel bag is full to bursting. Sole’s having trouble zipping it up, and for once it won’t be Danse to help him. It’s spiteful and petty, Danse is marginally aware of that, but at least he’s acting out instead of within.

A lost child. It is just the kind of case that would make Sole drop everything in order to get to the bottom of it. Danse knows, he understands. That does not eliminate the uncertainties surrounding the case. That it is a missing person case isn’t even a certainty.

“You should take me with you.” Danse says, this time clearly audible over the sound of Sole straining to close the bag.

It manages to get Sole to stop what he’s doing and fix him with this focused look. “Danse, we’ve talked about this.” Danse opens his mouth to protest. His arms remain crossed over his chest. “No,” Sole interrupts, “I’ll take Nick with me, it’s for the best. After this is done we’ll take Shaun to see Li.”

One thing Danse thinks he will never be able to replicate is Sole’s blind trust in the synth. But Sole trusts him wholly. Valentine’s been there for him since the beginning of this new world for Sole. It doesn’t matter.

“What if something happens?” Danse asks. “Valentine doesn’t have the training to deal with combat like you and I do.”

With that, Sole seems to give up on the bag for the moment. He walks up to Danse and holds on to his arms. “Danse. It will be fine.” He squeezes, his hands move to the sides of Danse’s head. “You just need to—have a little faith, okay?” A kiss. “Can you do that for me?” Sole punctuates the sentence with another kiss.

“Don’t go where I can’t follow.”

Normally, it would dissipate the heavy tension that’s working Danse up. A private joke. It might even draw a chuckle out of Sole. This once, it doesn’t work. Sole says, “You know I’ll tear the wasteland apart to come to you.”

He knows.

He just wants Sole to stay.

*

Sole hugs everyone goodbye. He tries his damnest to wrap his arms around Codsworth’s main body, to be mildly successful. When he hugs Dogmeat, he receives slobbering dog kisses on his face for his trouble. Shaun, he hugs, actually spins around, and then hugs once more before crouching down to tell him, “Promise you’ll be fine, son? I’ll be back before you know it.” Sole kisses Danse goodbye, hugging him close. Danse hugs him harder.

Shaun keeps a hand on Danse’s leg while they watch Sole and Valentine both disappear into the fog. He remains surprisingly composed after.

*

Danse falls asleep with a hand curled tight against Sole’s old dog tags. He doesn’t mind it when he wakes briefly at 0519 with Shaun’s clambering onto the bed. Shaun puts his back against Danse’s and stays. It’s good.

*

Nothing happens during the first week. Shaun keeps working on the Wazer Wifle. Danse helps him as needed. Teaches the kid how to take the screws out of a hot plate so he can use them. Nothing should go to waste—Danse learned that long ago in the Capital Wasteland—he doesn’t know where. It’s a memory he can’t quite pinpoint, but still. It is a lesson Shaun luckily doesn’t need repeated to learn. He really takes after Sole in that aspect.

He also takes up drawing. At 1534 Danse cleans up his rifle, while Shaun sits in front of him with his pencils. It’s the third time this day. Shaun’s drawing is of a family. His family. There’s Shaun, hand in hand with Sole. Dogmeat sits at their feet. The sun is smiling and yellow. He’s starting to work on a third figure. Long black hair. _Mom_.

Shaun finds him staring, and when he does, he immediately looks downward to inspect the colored pencil. Danse returns to his rifle, only to be called by Shaun, “Mister Danse... do you know about my mother?”

Danse stares, stopping in his tracks. “Excuse me?”

“Dad doesn’t talk a lot about her...” Shaun chews on his cheek for a moment, hesitant. “I was wondering if he ever told you about her?”

“Not a lot, but little pieces here and there,” Danse says. He doesn’t mean to talk much—this is, after all, not his conversation to have. On the other hand, he knows Shaun won’t let it go until he’s sated his curiosity. “He doesn’t like to talk about what happened—he told you, about before the War. But—it is difficult.”

There’s the fact that there is very little that Danse knows about the woman Shaun is trying to replicate. Danse knows the child keeps an old photograph of his parents—a thing Sole found in his old house, but it isn’t enough. He remembers seeing her for the first time, through the eyes of Kellogg, back when they were still unaware of who was behind the Institute, how long Sole spent down in Vault 111. It felt like trespassing, then. It took three days of trudging through the Glowing Sea and a dark little cave laden with radiation for him to learn of her name. Evelyn Greene Darling. He doesn’t know much about her, but he knows she was a strong woman, admirable and focused. He tells Shaun that much.

Shaun asks, “You think he misses her?”

“Yes. He does. He obviously loved her.” Danse sweeps his fingers over his rifle. “It is a shame, what happened to her. I am very sorry you couldn’t meet her.”

Shaun’s probing stops, for a while, and the sound of their conversation gives way to the sound of the radio and Codsworth’s occasional hissing. Shaun moves back to his drawing. He’s giving Drawing-Dogmeat a yellow bandanna. Then,

“Do you think he misses us right now?”

“Not in the same way, but yes.” Danse smiles. He brings a hand to ruffle Shaun’s hair. “Of course.”

*

Shaun works it out. Danse manages to be only mildly surprised. He’s mostly intrigued. The design, it seems, involves what appears to be magnets. Shaun explains it to him. It’s astonishing.

Shaun holds the component in his hands. He’s beaming—soon enough the entire thing will be finished. “They had a lot of books back in the Institute,” he says in way of explanation.

Danse nods. “Impressive.”

*

“You’re a synth.”

Danse acknowledges the question for what it is, Shaun testing ground. “Yes,” he says, rolling onto his back.

Sometime during the second week, Shaun takes to regularly slipping into bed with Danse early in the morning. It isn’t entirely different from what he used to do—what he does when Sole is around. But, it is unexpected that he elects to give Danse this very same treatment. Danse refuses to elaborate on it. Either way, Danse doesn’t get around to sending him away, not with how the child has taken to following him. He misses his dad. So does Danse.

Shaun turns his head to look at Danse, his back is tucked against Danse’s side. “Dad said you weren’t always a synth... How’s that possible?”

“It—it isn’t, to be truthful.” Danse doesn’t find this an easy subject. “I was—I thought I was human. Then your father infiltrated the Institute, and the truth came out. And that is that.”

“Were you ever not a synth?”

Danse huffs. “I don’t know.”

For a short while, there isn’t any noise. Shaun tucks the blanket against his chin. It’s cold in the early morning.

“So, you were a paladin for the Brotherhood.”

Something flipflops in Danse’s chest. He stretches his right leg; the knee joint cracks with a satisfying pop. This isn’t a conversation he wants to have.

“Not anymore, I am not.”

“Do they dislike synths in there?”

“Yes,” says Danse. He reconsiders. “No—they recognize synths for the threat they can be to the people of the Commonwealth. They protect the innocent.”

Shaun flips on his stomach to look at him. He knits his brows together. “You’re not dangerous. Neither am I—Dad doesn’t think so.”

Danse narrows his eyes at the child, but settles for inspecting his knuckles. “Your father disagrees with the Brotherhood of Steel on many aspects of the Codex.”

“Dad says you’re a good man.”

“Right,” Danse says, blinking. “Your father says that about many people.” And that’s the truth.

“He doesn’t touch them like he touches you,” Shaun drifts off.

Danse swallows dry. He says nothing, and Shaun doesn’t pursue that line of thought. It’s true, isn’t it. Sole is, for all purposes, a man of touch. He performs maintenance on Nick on occasion, unafraid and comfortable with the mechanical parts he can see beneath the veneer of worn skin. He often throws an arm around Preston, laughing, in camaraderie; throws both arms on Codsworth’s sides and makes a shoddy facsimile of a hug only to end up patting the Mr. Handy’s sides. Doggy kisses from Dogmeat, Cait’s bearish hug. The list goes on. Nothing quite how he seems to fit perfectly on Danse’s lap, sweet nothings streaming from his mouth. That is private, intimate.

Eventually, Danse takes a deep breath and makes to leave the bed. It’s 0819. “Come on,” he says, “it’s time to get up.”

*

The next time Danse is up in Shaun’s room, he inspects the main house. He can’t see his bed from here. He allows himself to feel relieved.

*

Haylen visits. It’s different from back when she used to visit Danse at the listening post. For one, she doesn’t bring him supplies but takes what Danse can spare for her. He cannot help her in battle but he will help her in any way he can. Shaun likes her, Auntie Haylen, he calls her. She’s too gentle (and strong, so strong) to correct him, and it isn’t Danse’s place to do so, either. They talk about the Brotherhood’s prolonged stay in the Commonwealth, something no one can explain save for Maxson’s most trusted officials. And Rhys, on lazy days like this, and while he doesn’t know about Danse, he must suspect. Haylen is optimistic that he might just be able to handle the truth without causing much uproar.

Danse isn’t quite as optimistic. Rhys is a good Knight, a soldier to the core. “He believes in duty, Haylen,” he says. “My being alive contradicts that.”

“With all due respect, sir. Duty _and_ honor. There was nothing honorable about your _death_.” She spits the word out. “Even Elder Maxson allowed you to leave. If he’s a good man, he’ll realize that.” Danse doesn’t dare to ask about the Elder.

“That remains to be seen,” he concedes.

They clink their Nuka-Colas together and take a swig.

*

Danse comes to discover he is quite good at chess. The game board Shaun has is pre-war, and the pieces are mostly scavenged. Shaun keeps telling Danse how Sole promises that one day he’s going to learn how to whittle and make a set of pieces. For now, they re-purpose the little wooden toy soldier Danse knows MacCready’s gifted Sole. It’s a knight, now. He doesn’t feel guilty for it. They play in the attic of the main house, where there’s a strip of unrepaired ceiling that allows the sun to warm up Shaun’s legs and feet.

At 1343, a voice calls from the radio, “General, are you there?”

Danse rushes for the ham radio Sole set up at their home base for the purpose of talking with the Castle. The device has performed admirably so far, despite how it was mostly made up from scavenged components. He picks up the receiver.

“This is Danse. The General is—unavailable. He is out. Go ahead.”

“Is everything okay?”

Preston only means well, so Danse explains. “He left with Nick. They had a job with the agency.”

He hears Preston heave a sigh on his side of the line. “We just got word from a settlement nearby—Coastal Cottage,” he says. “It’s serious. There’s been sightings of super mutants nearby. They need assistance. Look, I know you’re not with the Minutemen, but we really need your help, Danse.”

Danse keeps quiet, chewing the inside of his cheek. Shaun looks up at him from where he’s sitting.

“Danse?” calls Preston. He wants the General, Danse is aware of the fact, but this isn’t exactly an ideal situation. However, he knows how they work. He’s been together with Sole through enough of these pleas for help to know how to deal with the situation. He can get there quick and get it over just as quickly. Shaun will just need to be alone with Codsworth for a little while.

“Affirmative—yes, I’ll do it,” Danse says. “Coastal Cottage, you said?”

“Yes. It’s to the north from there.” The relief is tangible in Preston’s voice. It cuts through the ever present static. “Go as fast as you can. The Minutemen owe you for this, man.”

“Roger. I’ll send word when I have dealt with it. Over.” Danse puts down the receiver and kneels by Shaun, working out what to tell him. Shaun cuts him off.

“It’s alright, Mister Danse,” he says. “You’ll be back today, right?”

Danse nods affirmatively. “I will, Shaun. But I must do this first.”

*

He hears gunfire before he sees the settlement. Hears a mutant laugh, the settlers’ panicked shouts as they attempt to regroup and fight back, a turret giving out, the occasional hum a musket gives when it’s fired. It’s just as good that there are minutemen already helping out. Danse spaces his strides, trying to get to them before the situation worsens. Thankfully, when he finally sees the fight, no mutant has noticed him yet. Danse announces his presence with the death of one of the super mutants. There’s a mutant hound chasing after him. They bite hard, enough to sometimes leave a dent in his power armor. Danse finishes it off before it closes the distance between them. A settler throws a grenade down below where the mutants are. They scream in agony. Danse focuses on killing his share, making sure no civilian will die this day. It’s over sooner than later.

When it’s over, everyone tends to a wounded woman. Gunshot to the arm—it looks ugly, but they manage to get it patched quickly enough. She’ll make it just fine. Danse watches the procedures from a distance. but a young woman—her daughter—walks up to him, saying, “I’m glad you minutemen came by. Wouldn’t have made it otherwise.”

Danse recognizes her from the fight. She took down three muties after they hurt her mother, but she’s wrong about this. “I’m not with the minutemen. They sent me, but I am not one of them.”

“Same thing. You helped out.” She shrugs. She’s still clutching her shotgun. It doesn’t look standard, kitted out with homemade modifications. “Been thinkin’ about joining their lot. You think they’ll take me in?”

“Of course,” says Danse. “You’ll do just fine.”

*

It’s 2108 when Danse arrives home. He enjoys the accomplishment of a promise kept.

*

Shaun finally finishes the Wazer Wifle. Danse is the one to give it its maiden shooting, per Shaun’s request. He and the kid set up a range near the house. Danse piles up some cinder blocks, and Shaun gets half a dozen of used cans and sets them up on a line on top of them. It’s good enough, and all that’s left to do is to take a few steps back and try it out. He tells Shaun to sit behind him, a little way back. “You might want to cover your ears,” he adds.

He shoots the first three cans in quick succession. It works well, as expected. “That was amazing, Mister Danse!” The kid looks at him all big eyed. “Can I try it? Please?”

Danse figures it might not hurt to teach Shaun to defend himself. He will have to bring it up with Sole later. When he returns.

*

They’ve just entered the fourth week when Shaun revisits the family drawing. He remakes it from scratch, less yellow this time since Danse managed to get a pair of new pencils. Blue and brown. Shaun was delighted when Danse showed them to him, and immediately set off to work. Danse is mildly distracted while Shaun draws. He takes the time to walk around the lighthouse, won’t there be any surprises popping up to harm them. He cleans up his rifle inside and out, and that is the precise moment he realizes the drawing isn’t _just_ less yellow than the previous one. There’s a new person, clad in power armor. Dark hair, all eyebrows and scruff and a scar, hand in hand with Sole. Their hands look like mangled meat. But he’s smiling. They’re smiling.

“Who is that?” Danse’s voice comes out a little more alarmed than he originally planned.

“Mom?” Shaun gives him this look. “I know I didn’t really know her, but that’s how she looked like in the photos...”

She’s recognizable. Black hair gathered up in a neat ponytail. Red lipstick and a carefully lined cupid’s bow for lips.

“Not her,” Danse says. He taps the new figure. He knows the answer, he does. It must be morbid curiosity that urges him to check it up with Shaun, to make sure he isn’t making it up.

“That’s you, silly! I wanted to give you something for your help...” Shaun’s worrying his lip between his teeth. “Don’t you like it?”

He does. He does, and he doesn’t know if he _should_. Danse nods, nonetheless, which seems to soothe the kid. Despite how mangled their hands look, Shaun put an incredible amount of detail on the suit of power armor, down to the bolts on the shoulders. It’s remarkable.

On the other hand, Sole’s face is mostly freckles, the scar on his nose, and eyes. With the new colors, Shaun’s managed to get their color right at least, the little speckles of brown put it together. At their feet, Dogmeat’s bandanna is blue with a yellow 111 on it. Codsworth is a shiny ball with tentacles holding a can. It’s an entertaining little drawing. It manages to make him smile.

That is, until Danse takes note of the titles Shaun has given everyone in the drawing. _Codsworth, Mom, Me, Dogmeat, Dad Daniel, Dad Danse_. Danse feels a sudden swell of warmth in his chest—affection—that terrifies him to the core. Shaun tugs on his arm to show him what he’s made better for this version of the drawing. Danse lets him.

*

This, Danse realizes, is not standard. This adopting a new parental figure is something that Shaun wasn’t programmed to do. It goes against everything Danse thought about the synth child, no matter how much he acted like Sole’s son up until now. Synth Shaun was not built for this, and as such it is unexpected that he seems to accept Danse into this role. It is very much a human reaction, for all purposes.

How would Father react to that, Danse wonders.

*

At 0715 Danse leaves the bed. Shaun stirs, but doesn’t move otherwise. There is a large indent where Dogmeat had settled itself little after Danse went to sleep. Everything proceeds as usual until it doesn’t. Because Sole’s there, curled up on the couch downstairs, sleeping, Dogmeat at his feet. He always looks so young when he’s asleep. Too young for the things he’s seen, for a son that’s ten because waking up 210 years into the future to adopt a ten-year-old synth clone of your baby does just that. He is young, looking like it, since he’s freshly shaved. He must have arrived during the night—why didn’t he wake Danse up—that’s why his shaving tools were out of order—it doesn’t matter. He’s there, _actually, physically_ there. And so is Nick, sitting on a chair nearby but not really there as he’s doing what Sole has infamously dubbed His Nick Thing.

All at once Danse takes notice of how much he’s just—missed him. He forgets how to breathe for a moment. He tries to draw in a deep breath and approach Sole with soft steps, but those are betrayed by the groaning wood boards. It wakes Sole up, of course.

He jolts. “Danse?”

“You’re here,” Danse manages before Sole sits up and drags him down to hug him tightly. Danse buries his face into the side of Sole’s head, into his neck. He smells of brine and sweat and it feels like home. Sole’s clutching him tight, and Danse holds on to him as well until he can feel the reassuring thumping of Sole’s heart against him. Sole feels thinner. “Why didn’t you wake me? You should have woken me up.”

Danse pulls him back to inspect him. Sole looks frayed and so, so tired. Sole isn’t so much looking at him as he is looking through Danse, bringing a hand to his face and then another to the other side of Danse’s face. They bump foreheads together with a knock and then kiss with a clink of their teeth. Danse sweeps his hand over Sole’s forehead, brushing hair with it before he presses another kiss to his lips. He cups Sole’s face between his hands, this time to really inspect him. He seems paler, thinner, and his freckles are faded.

He’s so beautiful.

“I missed you,” murmurs Sole. His fingers curl around Danse’s wrists, but don’t move his hands away. “How’s Shaun?”

“He’s doing well. He’s still sleeping upstairs.” Sole nods. It’s been thirty-four days, nine hours, and what must be close to twenty minutes since Sole left. “What happened?”

Sole shakes his head. “Can I tell you when Nick’s done? Stay here with me until then.”

They shift in silence until they find a fit between the two of them and the couch. Sole burrows his face into the crook of Danse’s arm, staying still as Danse cards fingers through his hair, his other hand squeezing Sole’s shoulder. He can’t help but press his mouth to his hair. “Welcome home.”

Sole falls asleep easily just like that. He makes muffled noises into Danse’s chest not much after. He sleeps until the whirs coming off of Nick come faster, and the synth startles back into the living room.

“Danse,” says Nick

Danse only nods to keep quiet, but it doesn’t matter because Sole lifts his head off his chest to look at Nick over his shoulder. When he looks back at Danse, it is with a frown as he makes to disentangle himself from their little nest.

“You alright, kiddo?” Nick sits on the opposite edge of the couch, looking them over.

“Yeah,” Sole says. He sits up, prim and proper with his back straight up. He turns to Danse. His hands are folded on his lap. “I suppose I should start off with the case.”

He does.

The case, as it turns out, was a missing child. Sole tells him of Kasumi Nakano and how a quest for self-discovery lead her to a synth colony, Acadia. She was returned home, though Sole hasn’t decided whether it’s a success or not. Sole tells him of Far Harbor, the Fog, the beasts, and the fear as they tried to hold on to their meager land. Sole tells him of Acadia, the synth on the mountain, Nick’s brother, DiMA, and how the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The Children of Atom, their submarine, a vision that felt like a nightmare, the devotion and trials of Brother Delvin who would undo his body in order to commune with his deity. An ill woman chasing glory right before she dies, a widower chasing off into the Fog after the creatures that murdered his husband. Everything DiMA did to protect his, and how a desire so pure lead to atrocities Danse would attribute to the Institute. How Sole himself complicit in his actions in order to prevent the slaughter of every synth in Acadia; he curses a name, Allan Lee, for that. Only one man had to die. Tektus.

“I killed him and stuffed his body in a _wall_ , Danse.” In the name of _peace_.

Nick disagrees. “You don’t know if Lee had enough sway to convince all of Far Harbor to mob against Acadia,” he says. “They admire you.” There’s a story in there.

The stories come spilling out in increments. Sometimes Sole murmurs quick strings of words, sometimes there’s a long moment before even a single word comes out. Nick helps out. Danse says nothing. He knows he will, later, when they’re alone and Danse has figured it out. For now, he stays silent and listens, hand on Sole’s thigh. The stories stop all of a sudden.

After it’s done, Nick brings metallic fingers to brush the sleeve of his coat. “I need to get back to the office,” he announces. It’s been a long time. “If you need anything, show up when you’re around.”

“Will you be alright?”

“It will take time to work things out, sure, but this old pile of bolts might just make it.”

Sole nods. “You sure you don’t need company?” Nick shakes his head. “Send Ellie my best. Thank you, Nick.”

“Sure thing. Just make sure you take care of yourself, kiddo. You earned it.” He nods at Danse. “And you, take care of him, will you?” There’s something more, and Danse doesn’t know what it is. He will find out.

Danse furrows his brow. Knee-jerk reaction. “I always do.”

*

Sole slips back into normalcy easier than Danse expected.

He knows something is wrong.

Sole sleeps until Shaun wakes up and then, he devotes his attention to his son. He receives the Wazer Wifle with a bright smile and a hug. He kisses his son on the forehead, saying, “I’ll make sure to use it, Shaun.”

Shaun shows him the drawings he’s made during Sole’s absence. If he notices the addition to the family drawing, Sole doesn’t comment on it. But he gives Danse this look, soft and tender like when he held the settlers’ baby. He goes to sleep fairly early. When Danse joins him in bed, he’s already fast asleep. He doesn’t stir.

*

The second day, Danse wakes up at 0745, and it seems Shaun’s sneaking into their bed has stopped. Sole isn’t there, either, but Danse hears him and the water from the shower, so he manages the short burst of anxiety. When he walks into the bathroom to wash his face he notes Sole’s forgotten to bring a towel. As it is usual. It’s good. It feels like home. He fetches one and leaves it on top of the sink before he heads downstairs to get something to eat.

By the time Sole gets to him he’s putting together a trio of molerat sandwiches. They stop being his focus when Sole wraps his arms around his waist from behind, nuzzling his neck. His hair is still wet but he is so, so warm when he mumbles, “Hi,” into Danse’s shoulder.

“Hello,” says Danse. “I made these for us. We should eat.”

They do, together and in silence.

Sole stays with him throughout the day, never farther than an arm’s length. Each step one of them takes, the other follows. They walk the perimeter, patrol for raiders, tend to the turrets, and play with Dogmeat. Sole finally gets round to doing maintenance of the armor he took to Far Harbor. Danse helps him while Shaun plays fetch with Dogmeat. It’s almost a normal day.

*

The third day, they wake up alone together in bed, and Sole does the honors of piling himself on top of Danse to kiss his face all over. He finishes with a bite to Danse’s nose that has him bring his hands to Sole’s face and brush his hair away. It’s gotten longer, says Sole, and that is the first task for the day. He doesn’t end up cutting much of it; he never really returns to that same short length he had back when they’d met, long enough to tuck just the hair at his temples back into a knot.

Danse is finishing eating a mutfruit when Sole heads downstairs to dispose of the cut hair. The moment it takes Sole to look at it pensive is the time Danse spends weighing the pros to directly approaching Sole. The moment is gone when Shaun calls for Sole. There’s still preparations to make to take Shaun to Goodneighbor—to Li.

Later, Danse decides. Later.

Shaun showers before he goes to bed, while Sole strips radstag meat from bones for Dogmeat. That’s when. “You’re not telling me something,” he announces.

Sole doesn’t lie. They are very much past the time for that. “Not now. We’ll talk later,” Sole says. He’s smiling sweetly. “I’m okay.” He heads out towards Dogmeat’s bowl.

*

He isn’t.

*

He is woken by Sole’s sleeptalk at 0347. As usual, he can’t make out any of it, slurred as Sole’s words are. Usually, he can pick up names, repeated words—no, please, fuck. Not this time. There doesn’t seem to be a meaning that Danse can discern, but it’s clearly bad, given how Sole’s fists are balled against the sheets. Danse decides to wait a moment before he gently shakes Sole awake, with wide eyes like a radstag, before he closes them and breathes out heavily.

“I’m sorry,” he says into the crook of Danse’s arm, where he buries his head.

“It’s alright.”

Silence, until Sole backs off for air, rubbing his eye with the heel of his palm. “Danse,” he starts. “How much do you remember of your childhood?”

“Not a lot. I told you about this before.” Danse chooses not to dwell on his childhood, more so ever since his exile from the Brotherhood. It isn’t a part of his life he wishes to revisit, and one he struggles to recall beyond the vivid images of the Capital Wasteland, already offering himself to The Cause, being able to dip his feet into the cold waters of the Potomac. “Why? Is something wrong with Shaun?”

“No—no, he’s alright.” Silence, again. Danse spends the time counting the vertebrae under his middle finger as he runs his hand down Sole’s spine.

Eventually, Sole speaks up once more. “Doesn’t it feel like sometimes you know things—just _know_ them, about yourself and your life and who you are, you just know it even if you don’t remember how you actually got there?”

It does, it does. It’s an experience entirely too visceral and specific. Danse takes hold of Sole’s shoulders and keeps him there, at a distance, fixing him. “What are you talking about?”

Sole looks at him until he isn’t. Wringing his hands together. Danse finds himself looking at him with suspicion. Waiting, until Sole clears his throat. “I don’t—I can’t remember anything,” he says. “Before the war, before the day the bombs fell. I’ve been thinking about it. For a long time, now. I _know_ who I am, Danse. But I can’t—remember. Correctly. I just—I just have these impressions? But my wedding? I can’t remember. I can’t remember the day Shaun was born. My _son_ , Danse. I try to think about those things but I just can’t do it. Don’t know if it’s too painful, I prefer not to. Or if I _can’t_. What if I can’t, Danse?”

Sole knows the answer. So does Danse. He doesn’t speak up, this isn’t his moment to talk but to listen. Instead, he brings his hand up from Sole’s shoulder to the side of his neck. He feels Sole’s bloodflood crazy and afraid and alive beneath his thumb. It’s good that Danse feels well—grounded, actually. Because he wouldn’t have been able to do this otherwise.

“When I arrived at Acadia, DiMA asked me one thing. Am I a synth? What do I remember? Because that’s a clue. And I tick that box just—right. It was intrusive. Like he was just showing off, but now...” Sole drifts off into a brief silence, then swallows dryly. Danse’s thumb follows the rise and fall of his Adam’s apple. “I can’t stomach going back there. And I don’t know. That’s the worst part.”

It is. The gnawing and introspection that leads nowhere. The how and the when and the why why why why why why.

Even now, Danse asks himself that.

So does Sole. “If I’m a synth, that means they made me. The Institute. Father. My own son—Danse—he had to be involved. Why would he do that? Let me roam the wasteland, kill and crawl my way to him? Why let me destroy the Institute, Danse? Was everything I did—everything—their doing?”

A pause, a deep breath, Sole opens his mouth to speak but Danse beats him to it. “Daniel, _please_ ,” Danse warns. His voice cracks just slightly at the second syllable. Sole shudders visibly before he ducks to press his forehead to Danse’s chest. “You saved the Commonwealth. No one made you do it. You don’t know if DiMA is right.”

“How do you deal with this?”

“I don’t know,” Danse sighs. Even know, he feels the very same murky thoughts pressing up against the inside of his skull. He pulls Sole closer against his body and wraps his arms maybe too tightly around his body. When Sole puts his arms around him it’s just as tight.

“I know I love you,” Sole says, voice small. He presses those words against the skin of Danse’s neck where he kisses him. “That much is real.”

“I know.” Danse does. “Me too.”

*

There was box filled with holotapes hidden under the floorboards of Sole’s living room in Sanctuary. It’s a secret that was unearthed back when Preston’s group first moved into Sanctuary Hills. Sole wanted nothing to do with them, before all of this. Now, he wants to see them before they take Shaun to Amari and Li. He takes Danse and Shaun both there to at least settle that.

It’s a long walk to Sanctuary. They leave in the morning and arrive there at 1738, which gives them time enough to do what must be done without it being actually too long. The trip is mostly peaceful, but traveling with Shaun adds up more things to consider, security, and supplies. The whole way west Danse is focused on the skies, won’t there be any vertibird catching them unaware, on any threat that might pose a threat to them. There isn’t any save for the occasional molerat or pack of wild dogs. Every time it happens, Shaun climbs up onto Danse’s shoulders, so afraid but also so strong.

When they arrive at Sanctuary Hills, everyone rushes to greet them, and after a few brief words, MacCready and Curie keep Shaun entertained.

It leaves Sole to enter his old house. It’s mostly untouched—something about the place begs to be left alone. Sole excuses himself to the bedroom—Shaun’s baby room, actually, which Sole avoids bringing Shaun into—right after he picks up the box of holotapes under the couch. Danse sits himself on the couch, dusty and worn, while he tries his best not to imagine the place lived in and alive.

At 1853 he leaves the house to go to the communal house get some food. Shaun’s eating, sat by Curie’s side. Sturges greets him with a nod, a grin, and a “No, mister, I ain’t got nothin’ for you to do.” He leaves the power armor on the local frame.

When he returns to Sole’s home, he’s sitting on the floor, back to the blue crib in the middle. He has two piles of holotapes at his side. He spares a moment to look up as Danse puts the tray on a table and sets it in front of Sole, then he goes back to staring at his Pip-Boy. Danse does his best to make the words coming from Sole’s wrist background noise, but it’s difficult. He sits himself shoulder to shoulder with Sole.

It’s Sole’s voice, speaking to an imaginary audience that most certainly doesn’t consist of a synth and a maybe-synth-copy-of-himself over two hundred years into the future. Danse knows this speech. The one Sole would give the day the bombs fell. War never changes, but the people fighting them do.

The speech stops. “Wait, hon, did I say that right? The Allies ended the war...”

There’s a chuckle. His late wife speaks, Sole’s shoulders snap and tense like tripwire, “Maybe you should say the US. That would appeal to their sense of patriotism.”

“Oh. You’re right.” Another chuckle, the sound of a kiss. “You sure you don’t want to make the speech instead of me?”

Sole makes the tape stop quite abruptly. He shifts the tape in his hands.

“This is the only thing I remember,” he says. “The speech.”

“Give it time,” says Danse. “Perhaps it will come to you, eventually. That you don’t remember anything doesn’t necessarily mean that you are... a synth.”

“Yeah,” Sole sighs. “Sure. I don’t really want to talk about this right now, Danse. Where’s Shaun?”

“He is having dinner with Curie and the rest of the settlers. He seemed to be happy.”

Another sigh, relieved this time. “Thank goodness.” Sole leans his weight against Danse’s side, his ribs pressing up against Danse’s arm with each breath he takes. “What about you, did you eat yet?”

“No,” Danse says. “I brought our share for us to eat together.”

*

They don’t spend the night at Sanctuary Hills. The old blue house is left empty for the night. Shaun falls asleep shortly after dinner, so Danse carries him to the communal house before Sole leads him by the hand to the truck shop nearby. The power armor is left at Sanctuary Hills. Danse feels incredibly small the whole walk there, against the immensity of the stars and the glow of the crater and Diamond City.

Sole closes the garage door behind them as they enter. His other hand is still in Danse’s, and he doesn’t seem to want to part with it. Danse brings it up to kiss each knuckle and a soft look is his reward. Sole’s looking low lidded at him—at Danse’s mouth, fixed entirely on that part of existence.

Danse asks, “Do you need to rest?”

“I need to stop thinking about—all _this_ ,” Sole says. He moves their linked hands out of the way and kisses Danse wet and lazily. “Besides, how long has it been since we’ve touched each other properly?”

“A while.”

“Far too long,” Sole agrees.

That said, they steer each other into the private room in the back. It’s a casual push and pull, and when the backs of Sole’s knees hit the mattress, they strip down to their flushed skin before settling on the bed. It’s far too small for this kind of affair—Sole clearly hadn’t thought of company when he first set this base up. They make do like they have before. Sole lets out a low _oof_ and a laugh when Danse presses himself on top of him. He begins to thoroughly explore Sole’s body.

After a while, he stops entirely. Sole keeps mussing his hair and scratching Danse’s nape. Danse sees his holotags flat against Sole’s skin. They rise and fall with his heavy breathing. Danse is enraptured for a moment—his name will never see the Codex, the Elder— _Maxson_ —made sure of that. Surprisingly enough, the realization doesn’t come with a heavy pang on his chest this time. It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t—

“Danse?” Sole asks, voice low and hoarse with a whine. He brings a hand to Danse’s face, thumb over his cheekbone. “You okay?”

Danse nods. He tips his head to the side, enough to kiss Sole’s palm. Then, he kisses Sole’s sternum, just beneath the hollow of his clavicles where their holotags rest. He can make a shrine just as Holy as the Codex out of Sole’s rib cage. Be it organic or synthetic. He kisses warm skin reverently up towards Sole’s mouth and stops again. He backs off at the precise moment Sole chooses to tip his head towards him, and it’s perfect. He commits the image to memory: Sole, flushed with wide pupils and smiling before he grunts, frustrated. Wants to treasure it underneath his eyelids.

“God,” Sole breathes, “ _Danse_ , I swear—let’s switch, okay? If you want to enjoy the scenery go ahead. I won’t mind.”

There’s a huff. For all purposes, Sole counts it as a laugh as he gets up from the bed and Danse allows himself to be manhandled. Scenery promptly settles himself on Danse’s belly. He takes the chance to lick at the seam of Danse’s lips until Danse opens up for him, warm and lazy like the hands on Sole’s sides.

“That’s better,” Sole murmurs when he backs off, sounding very much self-satisfied. “Don’t you think?” He’s tying his hair back. It’s a sight Danse’s pulse is conditioned to race to.

He splays his hand over Sole’s sternum, saying, “This is fine by me.” More than that, really. Danse likes the press of Sole’s weight, his hands at his shoulder and stomach. Nothing will ever take this away from them.

*

They huddle together while they wait for Madison Li to do her work. Sole trusts her. “There’s no one more skilled for the job than her,” he says, but he’s a father and mother in one to the core, and so he worries. Danse watches a scavver in suspension in one of the loungers, while Sole plays with his Pip-Boy against Danse’s side. What kind of need drives these people to seek refuge in their own memories, he ponders. It’s a kind of certainty Danse cannot afford. Neither can Sole, now can he.

They spend time in silence until Shaun comes rushing towards them and hugs them. Sole hugs his son tightly and presses a number of kisses on the top of his head for as long as Shaun allows him and steps back to bounce on his feet. He’s so excited. Programming a synth isn’t quite like setting a bone right, so of course Shaun doesn’t need to convalesce after the procedure. Of course, of course.

Li calls Sole to the room, but they stay close to Danse, on the doorway. She lists him a collection of recommendations, which Sole will follow to the letter. Once it’s done, he lets out a shivering breath and hands her half a dozen of holotapes as compensation.

“This is what I could salvage of your research from the Institute before it happened,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

She artfully raises an eyebrow at him. “It is done. You can’t undo your mistake.”

He can’t, for sure. But Danse knows Sole never believed in the undoing but in the remaking, the rebuilding and the healing. There’s a difference that guides him to make the Commonwealth better. Sole smiles. “Yes, well, there’s a settlement that houses scientists who survived the Institute. They’re at Taffington Boathouse, if you’re ever in the neighborhood. It’s better than the Brotherhood, right?”

It is.

*

Back home, Shaun sits with his back to Sole’s chest and plays _Grognak and the Ruby Ruin_ s on his father’s Pip-Boy. All the while Danse sits with them, reading his well-thumbed issue of _Guns and Bullets_ and Sole drinks Nuka Cola, pointing out hints for his son. It feels like home. Shaun cheers every once in a while, until he slows down and eventually sleeps with his head rested against Sole’s arm. Sole slowly disentangles himself from his son only to pick him up in his arms, the child’s head on his shoulder.

“Hey, Danse,” Sole whispers, “gonna take him to bed.”

“Do you need any help?”

Sole shakes his head, smiling at him tenderly. “I’m fine. I’ll be back.” Danse labels the emotion that surges in his chest as some kind of longing and files it for later. He kisses Sole’s forehead when he returns to tuck himself at Danse’s side nice and cozy and sets the magazine at his side. Not like he was devoting much attention to it.

“Will I need to carry you to bed?”

That earns him a snort. Sole punches his arm lightly.

“Five minutes,” he says.

Danse kisses Sole’s forehead again, moving then to the freckles that seem to have returned to the bridge of his nose.

*

The early morning brings the sun and a golden, heavy quality to the air in the bedroom. Danse wakes up at 0813, and after a short while so does Sole. They don’t speak, stretched out with the bed covers tangled in their limbs. Sole’s running his fingers through Danse’s scalp. He doesn’t feel like ever leaving this. Danse tries to return the favor but it turns into a unhurried push and pull of their bodies. Slow and steady with Danse’s weight pressing them both down onto the mattress. Sole doesn’t make a move to change their positions. Instead, he glows. Flushed cheeks and a thin sheet of sweat. It’s an accomplishment worth more than any accolade exchanged after a duty performed. Danse must have made a noise because Sole changes the press of his fingers from Danse’s back and bottom to slip his hand into Danse’s underwear and take a hold of him. He brings Danse to the brink. It’s far too easy with the amount of pre-ejaculate he’s leaking.

“You’re shaking,” Sole says right into his ear. Danse doesn’t know if it’s the sleep in his voice or lust or the whispering that makes his voice so soft and low. Danse knows he’s groaning in return. “Come for me.”

Danse can hear the smile in his words and that’s probably what does it for him.

As soon as he gains a semblance of control over his hands, Danse swats Sole’s away and returns the favor. It’s a mess, but it’s a while of basking in the afterglow before they think about cleaning up.

*

It works, it works. Four measures later and Shaun shows a growth spurt of nearly an inch. It’s a great day, says Codsworth. Sole spins Shaun around, and when he hugs his son he’s crying. Codsworth promptly fetches for a handkerchief.

Shaun tugs on Danse’s arm and, in an eager voice asks, “Hey, dad, when do you think I’ll be big enough for a Power Armor?”

Danse smiles and ruffles his hair, “You’ll get there some day, kid.”

Sole picks Shaun up, but doesn’t spin him around this time. He seems to have stopped caring about his red eyes, crinkling at the corners when he smiles. “Besides, you can learn to shoot first,” he says.

It’s a compromise.

*

“You’re happier.”

Sole sits on the armrest of the chair nearly noiselessly. The breeze tugs and plays with his hair, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He’s looking at what Danse was watching—the sea, Shaun playing fetch with Dogmeat down by the waterline. Danse’s rifle is partially assembled on his lap, but it doesn’t quite hold the same urgency as watching Sole in this light.

He brings his hand to the small of Sole’s back. The shirt he’s wearing is worn and soft, and allows his fingertips to touch warm skin. The Prydwen still looms over the horizon. It has taken some time, but Danse doesn’t spend so much time watching it from afar. He doesn’t spend so much time in front of the mirror purposefully screwing his shaving routine to see if he bleeds, either, though sometimes he still has difficulty with meals. Still has nightmares. It’s still a work in progress. “I suppose I am,” says Danse.

“It’s good.” Sole takes his hand and links their fingers together. Dogmeat barks below. He kisses their linked fingers. He kisses Danse’s forehead. “You deserve it. If there’s one person who deserves it—it is you, Danse.”

Danse looks down to where their fingers are linked. This— _this_ is it, the rebuilding and the healing.

**Author's Note:**

> — title came from beirut's 'scenic world'.  
> — laser muskets make absolutely no sense and neither does the wazer wifle.  
> — far harbor was really really Good and sole being a synth is something that feels weirdly like a real possibility, though not one that can be tested.  
> — one more to go for this series. thank you so much for reading! as always, comments are very much appreciated :)


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